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    Romania - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture
    Romania - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture
    Romania - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture
    Ebook228 pages2 hours

    Romania - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture

    By Debbie Stowe and Culture Smart

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    About this ebook

    A land of mountains, hills, and fertile plains, Romania is a tourist destination waiting to be discovered. It is a rich and complex country: a place whose cities are home to beautiful parks and vibrant cultural scenes; whose people welcome guests warmly into their homes, sharing the best of whatever they have, and party into the night, suffused by Latin joie de vivre. Buffeted over time between three great powers—the West, Russia, and Turkey—Romania betrays the cultural influences of each, and it can be a difficult place to get a handle on. Culture Smart! Romania provides an indispensable tool for the foreign visitor, digging deep behind the clichÉs, explaining many of the behavioral quirks of the people, smoothing your path toward better understanding, and outlining the many attractions—cultural, social, and geographical—that await you in this underexplored part of Europe.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKuperard
    Release dateMay 1, 2017
    ISBN9781787029767

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      Book preview

      Romania - Culture Smart! - Debbie Stowe

      chapter one

      LAND & PEOPLE

      GEOGRAPHICAL SNAPSHOT

      Variously described as being in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Romania lies just north of the Balkan Peninsula. It could technically be thought of as being in Central Europe, as it is equidistant between the continent’s easternmost and westernmost points, the Ural Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. It’s also halfway between the North Pole and the Equator. At 91,780 square miles (238,391 sq. km), Romania is the fourth-largest country in Central and Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Bulgaria to the south, Serbia to the southwest, Hungary to the northwest, and Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova to the north and northeast. The eastern coast meets the Black Sea. The Danube River runs along the southern border with Bulgaria for just under 670 miles (1,075 km) before turning north and reaching the Black Sea as the Danube Delta. The capital, Bucharest, is 449 miles (723 km) from Belgrade, 398 miles (641 km) from Istanbul, 254 miles (409 km) from Sofia, 526 miles (847 km) from Budapest, and 692 miles (1,114 km) from Vienna.

      Romania’s terrain is evenly split between mountains, hills, and plains. The countryside reflects a rather ad hoc form of agriculture; orchards and vineyards are often charmingly disorderly. There are green and lush areas flecked with haystacks, bright yellow sunflower fields, and dense forests. The mountains can be snowcapped or verdant depending on the season, not unlike those of Switzerland or Austria. The highest point is Moldoveanu Peak, at 8,346 feet (2,544 meters), in the Southern Carpathians. Natural resources include oil, natural gas, coal, iron ore, nonferrous ore (copper, lead, and zinc), gold and silver ore, sulfur, timber, and salt.

      One of the country’s most interesting geographical areas is the Danube Delta (Delta Dunării), Europe’s largest and best-preserved delta. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is home to 300 species of birds, 1,200 kinds of plants, and forty-five species of freshwater fish.

      CLIMATE AND WEATHER

      Romania’s position on the edge of the continental landmass gives it elements of both temperate and continental weather. It is also somewhat protected by the Carpathian mountain range, which serves as a barrier to both Atlantic air masses and Russian climatic influences. The climate can certainly be on the extreme side, however; Bucharest summers can see the temperature soar to over 104°F (40°C), while rural winter lows can be as harsh as 14°F (-10°C) or worse, with summers averaging at about 72°F (23°C) and winters 27°F (-3°C). Both of the two main seasons are long, and seem to be encroaching more and more on spring and fall. Even quite young Romanians have noticed a difference compared to when they were children. Seasons can change quite abruptly, although there are still decent periods of very pleasant weather.

      In the south, the average annual temperature is 51.8° F (11°C); in the north it’s slightly lower at 46.4°F (8°C). Perhaps the best of the weather is in the southeast of the country, where Mediterranean influences bring mild, warm conditions. Rain is not a problem outside the mountain areas—although when it does come it often comes with a vengeance, and the country’s substandard drainage systems can be overwhelmed. In the cities this seldom results in anything worse than wet socks, but some parts of rural Romania are severely afflicted by floods every few years, with deaths reaching the low double figures. Snowfall in winter can be severe.

      A BRIEF HISTORY

      Romanians put a lot of their contemporary woes down to historical causes, and with good reason. A relatively powerless country—which, its citizens are proud to tell you, has never invaded another state—Romania’s location left it at the mercy of great, and often aggressive, neighboring foreign empires. It was rarely left in peace for long enough to develop a sense of its own identity. The Communist regime, as we will see, had the biggest effect, leaving a legacy of bureaucracy, mutual suspicion, and corruption, along with an awe for most things Western.

      Prehistory to the Dark Ages

      The first traces of human habitation in what is now Romania date back to the Stone Age. Around 10,000 years ago, settled communities relied on hunting, farming, and breeding stock. Estimates vary as to when the Thracians, a group of Indo-European tribes, arrived from the south, but by around 500 BCE they had mixed with the local people to form the Dacians. The Dacians, in turn, split into various tribes, federations, and kingdoms, and under their greatest king, Burebista, who ruled in the first century BCE, became so powerful that the Romans began to take heed. Julius Caesar decided to wage war against the Dacians but was assassinated before he had the chance—shortly before Burebista met the same fate, slain by his own noblemen. The state was subsequently split into four and then reunified.

      Meanwhile, the Roman Empire was growing in might and territory, and the Roman emperor Trajan eventually conquered Dacia in 106 CE. The Romans held on for over a century and a half until successive incursions from the Barbarians prompted them to withdraw, and the brief period of their rule was a significant one for the country; they brought a Latin language and Christianity, as well as advances in farming, mining, commerce, arts, crafts, and culture.

      The Dark Ages saw the future Romania governed in succession by the Gothic, Hunnish, Avar, and First Bulgarian empires. Throughout this chopping and changing, the Daco-Romans did their best to continue life in their villages. Their language was developing, as was their religion, under the guidance of the Orthodox Byzantine Empire (the Greek-speaking Roman Empire) at Constantinople.

      The Middle Ages and Some Famous Names

      By the tenth century the region was divided into small zones, and these eventually merged into three feudal states or principalities—Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia. These are still recognized today, albeit no longer with any administrative relevance. The Magyars of Hungary conquered Transylvania in the eleventh century, an act that still has ramifications in the present day. It was at this time that the Székely (a Hungarian-speaking ethnic group), the Teutonic Order, and the Saxons were invited by their Hungarian kings to settle in Transylvania. From 1453, however, Moldavia and Wallachia had a new fight on their hands when the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople. While the Ottomans expanded their empire through the annexation of much of Hungary and the Balkans, the Romanian principalities held out, with their princes heading the Christian resistance for several hundred years.

      Most legendary among these princes—for very different reasons—were Stephen the Great and Vlad the Impaler. The latter, Vlad Țepeş in Romanian, ruled Wallachia three times: in 1448, from 1456 to 1462, and again in 1476. His notoriety stems from the cruel tortures he inflicted on a variety of victims, from local peasants, women, and children to ambassadors, merchants, and invading Ottomans. From the most infamous one, death by impalement, he derived his appellation. A Romanian story suggests that under Țepeş, it was possible to leave a bag of gold in the street, where it would remain untouched, so great was the fear of punishment. There were also rumors—which historians do not credit—of cannibalism, which led to Țepeş’ inclusion in the Dracula myth of Bram Stoker’s novel. Despite his sadism, however, in Romania Țepeş is remembered chiefly for his justice and spirited defense against the Ottomans, whom he successfully held at bay for some time.

      Vlad the Impaler’s contemporary, Stephen III of Moldavia, or Stephen the Great (Ștefan cel Mare), is remembered for different reasons. Throughout his long reign (1457–1504), he fortified Moldavia, preserved his state from Hungarian, Polish, and Ottoman attempts to conquer it, and won thirty-four out of thirty-six battles he waged. One of these was a historical first, a Christian victory over the Ottomans that led Pope Sixtus IV to pronounce him verus christianae fidei athleta, or True Champion of Christian Faith. Aside from the cultural development that took place during his reign, his legacy includes the many self-built churches and monasteries that today are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. A few years ago, 40,000 viewers voted him the greatest Romanian of all time in a poll organized by a Romanian TV channel.

      Despite the efforts of Vlad the Impaler and Stephen the Great, the Romanian principalities could not hold the Ottomans at bay indefinitely without help from the West and were obliged to recognize Turkish suzerainty. They were never occupied, however, and unlike much of Byzantium, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Hungary, never became provinces or had Turkish governors, instead paying a tribute to the Turks for the privilege of retaining their autonomy. At this time the Romanian states were the protectors of Christianity for the entire Orthodox East.

      The Beginnings of Modern Romania

      The defeat of the Ottomans did not put an end to foreign intervention in Romania. In 1699 the Treaty of Karlowitz gave Transylvania to Habsburg Austria. The Austrians in their turn began to expand their empire. They co-opted Oltenia, part of Wallachia, in 1718, and held on to it for almost two decades. This was followed by the Habsburg seizure of Bucovina in northwest Moldavia in 1775, and the Russians also got in on the game by occupying Basarabia, the eastern half of Moldavia, in 1812. Indeed, the period was marked by the growing political influence of the Russian Empire, a power that would come to dominate the Romanian political landscape until the late twentieth century.

      Meanwhile, the late eighteenth century had seen the emergence of a Romanian bourgeoisie whose sense of shared identity prompted it to call for the union of the three states into an independent country. The wave of liberal national revolutions that swept through Europe in 1848 reached Romania with popular democratic uprisings in the three principalities. The first phase of the union—the merging of Moldavia and Wallachia—was achieved in 1859, after Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War. At the time, the new entity was ruled by the elected Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza, but seven years later a combination of scandal and political opposition forced him to abdicate, and he was succeeded by the German Prince Carol (Karl) I of the house of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.

      Trouble with the Turks simmered on. In 1877–78, Romania fought with Russia against the Ottomans. Its contribution was considered instrumental, and the country was recognized as an independent state in the 1878 Treaty of Berlin, making it the first independent national state in Eastern Europe. It became a kingdom three years later, with Carol I as king. This did not address the issue of Transylvania, however, which by then had become part of Hungary, despite the protestations of

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